A Chicken Challenge!

Blog post by JMM archivist Lorie Rombro. You can read more posts by Lorie here.

October 24th was our members event, Feast of Flavors: A Cooking Demo and Tasting for our new exhibit. Vered Guttman, a food writer, came and gave a cooking demo of Iraqi Jewish foods. All the recipes looked incredible but I really wanted to try making Tbeet, a Jewish Iraqi chicken and rice dish. I knew this was something my family would like and was different from what I usually made. We are an adventurous group when it comes to food and my husband and children always like to try something new. The recipe also looked easy, I’m not a bad cook but I really don’t have much time to put into making meals and a one pot recipe is always appreciated.

Vered shows off the ideal chicken at the Feast of Flavors cooking demo.

The audience was told to get a nice big plump bird, a fryer, so the chicken did not dry out. After 7 phone calls with my husband, who I sent out for the chicken, this was finally accomplished. You began by mixing the spices with the dried rice and stuffing the bird with the mixture and then tying the legs and closing the front with toothpicks so the rice doesn’t fall out. That part was a bit easier said than done. After breaking many tooth picks, I gave up and hoped for the best.

Stuffing the chicken with rice.

Tying the chicken shut.

When the chicken was finally in the pot you cover it with more spices, cumin, cardamon, turmeric, paprika and pepper, add water and cover the chicken with what seemd like a large amount of rice. The eggs are added on top, everything is covered in tinfoil and placed it in the oven overnight at 225.

A well spiced chicken!

The finished product – delicious!

The next morning the kitchen smelled wonderful and the chicken was unwrapped and looked delicious. My eggs came out a little weird, but the chicken was moist and falling off the bone. This did make it a bit hard to find the chicken in the mounds of rice, and I think I will use less rice next time. But last night we all enjoyed the Tbeet and I will make this again. It actually was fun; the whole family was involved in our experiment and we not only had a delightful meal but we spent time together trying something new.

Want to give it a try yourself? Here’s the recipe Vered shared with us!